I feel sorry for people who
live in cities that don't have subways (or "The T"
as we say in Boston, the "El" as they say in Chicago
or "There's a subway?" in Los Angeles). There's nothing
like being able to get on a train and ride in comfort while those
poor saps in their cars are stuck in traffic. Fools! you sneer,
as you read your paper, or book, or Kindle, or, last week, what
appeared to be the entrails of a chicken that some guy was using
to figure out his scratch ticket choices. Scratch tickets are
VERY popular with subway riders; if they win they can afford
to buy a car.

Compared to New York, Boston's
subway system is a manageable size with only four main lines;
Red, Blue, Green and Orange. Have you ever looked at a map of
the New York subway system? It's like a schematic drawing of
the main computer on the Space Shuttle, although it's a lot less
safe mode of transportation. The also have locals, expresses,
every letter of the alphabet lines, lines marked with a skull
and crossbones like Black Diamond trails at a particularly challenging
ski resort (say, one in Bosnia), etc. It's so extensive that
parts of it are as yet unexplored, so there are large areas,
in the Bronx I think, that simply say "Here be Dragons".

Dragons would be an improvement
over some of the life forms one sees on the New York subway.
It's this drama that's made it an essential part of so many movies;
"The French Connection", "The Taking of Pelham
123", "Money Train", "Hellboy", "Bambi"...
Okay, "Bambi" wasn't filmed there, but there have been
reports of rats the size of Bambi's mother, who I'm sure would
be sorely missed by her offspring if the Number 4 to Flatbush
took her out.

No, Boston's subway is much
more manageable. Of course, it's beset by all the problems one
sees in any public transportation, most notably the riders. Where
else can you travel with exotic people from all over the world,
including the post-apocalyptic war zone from Mad Max? I was riding
to work one hot summer day (note: the trains are usually air
conditioned but the stations, most of which were built during
the reign of Charlemagne, are not) when a perfectly average looking
passenger (that is to say dressed in a bulky trenchcoat, dark
glasses, bucket hat, a thick beard and a large clock around his
neck) looked around the train and loudly announced "I'm
glad I don't know anyone on this train!". Who needs Islamic
terrorists when a perfectly normal rider can get your heart racing?
And it's always a safe policy to never make eye contact; that
just invites them to strike up a conversation about The Lord,
death, politics or whatever.

Another problem, of course,
is when they have to take a train "out of service".
It's not like a delay, for which they apologize profusely, (usually
because of "traffic ahead", even though the last train
came through weeks earlier) where you can sit and read and try
to ignore the guy screaming that the CIA is beaming messages
into his brain (hint: the extra money you pay for Reynolds Wrap
is well worth it), or the person next to you on the cell phone
yammering in Spanish like Ricky cursing out Lucy for 20 straight
minutes. When a train is taken out of service all the passengers
are unceremoniously dumped at some station to wait for a "replacement
train". And it's never for a legitimate reason, such as
the driver of an earlier train ran into a troop of Girl Scouts
who were delivering Candygrams to the homeless and wandered onto
the track. It's always some mysterious cause, like "signal
problems", whatever that means. And, it never happens in
the nice weather, a crisp fall day when you can stand on the
platform listening to the soft staccato of automatic weapons
fire from the nearby housing projects. It always seems to happen
when it's hotter than the Great Nafud Desert in the off season
or so cold you could make good money renting out space in a gutted
Ton-Ton to your fellow riders. But never fear, that replacement
train will come to take you on your way. So sit back, relax and
enjoy the ride. And remember, don't make eye contact.